These changes were not made all at once, and no doubt I have their chronology mixed. We hardly noticed them during their slow and gradual progress, and when they were all made we ceased to remember how things were before. Indeed they were not accomplished without many perturbations. Tem wiped his brow unceasingly and sweated out all his wine. Mimi Pachoux stole away no longer but made a great noise to attest the certainty of his presence; and The Hanged bent his dantesque countenance over obscure and useful tasks. The community of their fate had by no means brought about their reconciliation. They were always observing, spying upon one another, but all three observed and watched the house still more closely. What did they fear to see emerging from it? I discovered one day. My father, who had become their master, drew near with rapid step. He spoke to each with kindly encouragement, but he examined their work as one who knew. “All the same, he knows what he is about,” Mimi admiringly confessed. I learned from Tem that after having severely admonished them he had raised their wages. But he insisted upon good work. In a word, he drew, them back to himself whenever they demurred at a task, or soured upon it. But without doubt he upset all the old habits of a region where people love to drift along, taking life as easily as they drink its new wine. This is why Tem Bossette, more than any of them, sighed for the ancient reign of the Sluggard Kings, when he had lived tranquil and forgotten among his vines. Once he tried in my presence to move grandfather to pity for his sad fate. “Friend,” was the answer, “I am nobody here; go to some one else.” Never had grandfather seemed so full of spirits as since his abdication. No, certainly he did not regret his lost authority, but he made a point of knowing nothing of the acts of the new régime. Did he travel over the kingdom? He seemed never to perceive that its very pebbles were blossoming. But one day, when he was taking the air in the garden, I saw him combing his beard and rubbing his eyebrows--a sure token that he was dissatisfied; he spat, as a sign of contempt, and the little impertinent laugh accompanied words which were incomprehensible to me. “Oho! everything is being put to rights--what they need is a geometrician rather than a gardener.” What was he finding fault with? The garden beds, the trees, obedient to the hand of man, made a richly disposed picture. My little ideas of life had here grouped themselves and taken form with unwonted pleasure. I was provoked with grandfather’s lack of enthusiasm. “See,” I said to him, not knowing just what to say, “those beautiful red cannas around the basin of the fountain.” He took me by the arm with unexpected roughness. “Look out, child, you’ll spoil the grass!”